Transcript of the Discussion at the First Meeting of the Medical Review Board of the Atomic Energy Commission

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THE MEDICAL REVIEW BQABD -Repository: NARA Atlanta Archives Folder: Board of Review

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Dr. Loeb: To start mith, we mul d like to let the men who have cane a long way, t e l l us what i s going on, and know once more and finally that this is, a58 far as we're Ooncerned, not an inquisition. 1%was never designed t o be such; t h a t the group of men who have been asked to mrvo on this board of review, I think wit21 perhaps one or two exoeptions, are arholly innocent people who know nothing uhatsoever of biological effects of radiation. supposed t o be a critical review of work done. asked to help the Commission in defining a policy as t o *ere it goes from here as far aa reeeareh i n biological effecte of radiation are conoerned. be present this morning t o hear t h e problem restated by Mr. Lilienthal as was stated by him i n his letter to various manbera of this board. stay ale we do have 811 inquisition with Mr, Wileon and aak him some questions to orient us a little bit on our job. v8 have elected t o ask that we have the privilege of talking with you and hearing your camraents aa to past, present, and your idees concerning the future, and seriate them in order that we may not be more conf wed than WB are at this moment. We have also asked that tomorrow night a t 8230 we meet a t the Stat ler and there wa will have a forum for the evening *ere we hope that vario'tze of you and oureelves may ask each other questions and have 80188 give and take concerning ideas as t o practicality, etc,, of Nm, wa have elected t o ask you t o We have also hoped that you mill be willing to

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'm oe rhin possible programs. on through Wednesday. get together and see what it can 606 as the result of the information which we have obtained and it w i l l then try t o formulate not a detailed report, but a brief report concerning policy f o r the Conde6ion. Now, I hope that this will be a wholly informal affair. If it isn't, I think wm w i l l not get very far, I hope that we can have completely frank expresaion of opinion. I, f o r one, believe that one can have very serious disagreement without disagreeableness. I just hope that there will be no pulling of punches concerning views at any time in the whole session. Bs I said, E-.Lilienthal has been delayed. I wrote out a few questions which bother me as far as orientation in this whole affair is concerned, and I am going t o ask first if w i l l say what he would care to say to us, and then ask him i f he dl1tryto perhaps wwer some of thesequestions and tell us what's your business and also what he can concerning his part Then these ConSultatioxU will go On Thursday, this group Kill have to Fiegarding the recorders on the table, we thought we would l i k e very much to have Mr. lK1sont8 and Mr. Lilienthalts comments recorded for us in this board t o serve as a form of record, so t h a t if one of us says, well, &.Wilson said thii", and someone said, "He said that", we w5ll have a reoord of it. As far as our own deliberations are concerned, we would rather not have anything

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v=v- recorded because our ignorance is nothing t o be perpetuated. On the other hand, it might be of distinct value a8 a matter of record and it might pave somebody some trouble i n writing presentations for um, i f you care to, m would be delighted and I am sure Mr. Wilson muld be delighted t o have them translater on. IS that fair, Mr, 1RilsonS If those of you .rrho have more or leas thought out They could be then referred t o you for correction Mr. ml60n: If it is agreeable to the individual. Dr. Loeb: Yes, wholly agreeable t o the individual, That to me is a d you can call your shots on it. Without Wilson, I wonder if you would like to k.Wilson: As your chairman has said, M r . Lilienthal has been somewhat delayed but will be here presently and welcome you on behalf of t h e Commission and the whole s Wf, I amvery grateful both tothe Board of &View and t o the people who have oocupied etmh au important place i n t h e program during these past several pars, and we hope that i n the future will be here to help us t o define certain broad policy lines t o guide the Commission i n going ahead i n a field which is largely full of unexplored achninistrative devices and policy questions. told you a l i t t l e about ahat the Commission is and what it is I think it might be useful ifI

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charged t o do and, ina very general way, some of its responsibilities. The Commission isset up under the Atomic Energy Act which m a passed on August 1, 1946, establishing a five-man Cammiseion with full-time membership and veeting in that Cods8ion very broad reaponsibilitiea and duties to develop the field of atomic energy; to guide all ofita operations eubject tothe paramount objective of assuring the common defense and security. is charged w i t h ownership and control of all fissionable material, responsibility for produation of fiS8iQnable matxrial, respoasibil it y for the development and manufacture of atomic weapons, responsibility for safeg ~ ardi qt h e health and safety, not only of personnel directly involved inits operations, but also insuring that the public is protected as far as possible from t h e kinds of hazards associated w i t h this kind of business. There are a number of specific provisions i n regard t o patents and inventions and relationships w i t h the Armed Forces and with the Liaison Committee is established under the statute. It ROW consists of three officers of the Brary and three of t h e Navy, llmo serve as the formal link to the Armed Forcer. fully idormed conaerning the affairs of the Commission and likewise serve to in form the Cds sion of the needs and requirements and views of the Armed Forces. There is also provided under the statute a Joint Congressional Committee. As to t h e relations with the Armed Forces, a Military They are kept This is (L novel provision

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i n the statute setting up an exeoutive commission. This is a standing committee consisting of nine members of the House and nine members of the Senate, who likewise are to be kept informed concerning the work of the Commission and to take the initiative i n relation to legislative change6 needed in the Act setting it up, This Act i s one o f the very few thst ever acknowledged that it was experimental. Usually, den Acts are passed they are considered perhaps t o be t h e final word, but in view of the many unkno'lrpns in this business, Congress formally acknowledged i n the statute that it would have t o be amended from time to time i n the light of experienoe and the changing needs in this field, The statute a leo estrblished four statutory positions i n addition t o that of the General Manager who i s the Chief Beoutire Officer of the Canrmission; one i s the Director o f the Divieion of Research, second i s the Director of t h e Division of Engineering, t h i r d is the Director of Division of Production, and the fourth is t h e Director of the Division of Military Application. The lRt ter to be either an active or retired officer o f the Amy or Navy e It is not, ertept for one aspect wbich I think i s not t o o important here, necessary to define the duties and responaibil i ties of these four Directors, some are obvious from their names. The Director of Production K i l l be responsible, or we intend to charge him with the responsibility, for developing the

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Mr. Wilson: programs of production t o meet the needs of both the bed Sendoes and t h e Commi~sion's peacetime progrem and t o see that the program i s reflected inthe operations of the numerous contractors who are involved i n the production side o f -this it suitable as feed material for t h e separation plants or tho Procurement and refining and prooessing of ore to make have a certain in take of fieo3.onable material or certain output planto at Word which are the production plants for plutonium. He Kill have t o deliver to the Los Alamos headquarters, rhich i s responsible for development and production of wetxpons, %he The soheduled produotion of the reparation plant8 to Similarly, the production schedules for the materials needed t o meet the requirements stated for weapons. The Director of Engineering will probably have less program responsibility than responsibility a8 a very versatile engineer who can dip into the many engineering problems all over this lot. Wo have found, we have become increasingly impressed by the fact that there i s a great deal of verytough engineering work lying ahead if this field is to be adequately developed. of Military Application is concerned not only with the Los Alamos program i n terms of production and characteristics of the resulting product, but also w i t h the operations of the Costmission aa a *ole beoause they have a very distinct bearing on t h e end product. might say that you are already well acquainted with the fact that

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Mr, Wilson: three-fourth8 of this business i s necessary *ether you are going to use the fissionable material for weapons or for reactors for it, you have t o &e uranium 235, and you have t o make platonium. You have toget ore, you have t o process It i s only when you get 255 and plutonium that you need to decide what you are going t o use it for, whether it be for weapons or whether it be for research, or reactors which may be prototypes of power reactors of the future, The Director of the ifivision of Research we have considered t o embrace t h e research basioally inthe phyaical sciences rather than the medical and biological sciences, Research in t h e physical sciences is a very large subject i n itself, We don't believe that both uan be embraced inIAe sane individual. 'Itherefore, one of the questions rhieh 1cb must consider i s how we can establish adequate direction and plarming of the program for the medical and biologioal sciences. The Commission i s planning to utilize administrative mechanisms for decentralized operation as fully as these can be exploited f o r this purpase. Washington which i s a very nice building. perhaps t o the job that .this Commission has t o do. hope to live approximately a t least within this building i n terms of the people who will be i n Washington. hold a maximum of 450 people, t h a t means everybody, Therefore, 7118 have been looking upon the Divisions and Offices i n Washington, We have this building here i n It i s mall in relation 2 0 0 0 59sQfoUr technical divisions of research, engineering, production

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a n d military application, and the management offices of the General Counsel, Camptroller, Budget Director, Personnel, Securi%, Inf'ormation, and so on, a6 e ment i ally general staff divisions, with five field offices. They aren't field offices inthe usual sense, but offices where operations are directed i n various functional ways. in'Blew York, a manager i n oharge who has a broad delegation of responaibility and au-thority t o administer the contracts aseigned to that offioe. Now that does not mean that he determines the program t o be followed in those contracts. wbich oc~curo as a result of consultation betyeen the contractor, tha Manager in Mew York, and the direatore of the appropriate divisions here i n Washington. We look rorward to a type of program operation where perhaps the Connnfssion w i l l approve twenty o r twnty-five programs a year. preferably of a year's duration. character of the d fort in a given laboratory o r under a given to go along with it, it will have requiramenta i n terms of reporting 8 0 -chat there w i l l b.e a minimum of day to day program chaage or question. say, but we a r e progressing towards an underatanding of what our program should be, hat some of the priorities are, what the role of different types of laboratories may be in th ie For example, we have an office That is a procese There will be programs They will indicate t h e general Nowwe are not a t that stage yet, I might

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laboratories, in the sense t h a t there is a definite objective tothe program there inthe terms of development of reactors, let us say, o r in terms ofthe development of weapons. On the other hand, there will be other laboratories whioh are prinarily laboratories f o r the creation of new knowledge and for the training of people. usually a sink for people. of trained people, otherwise we will never generate enough Some of them we look upon as being programmatic The programmatic laboratory is We want to have adequate sourcee people to do this job. Looking a t it geographically, under the New York Region there a r e a number of contracts which are essentially of a production nature related t o the procurament and processing of uranium and thorium tothe point *ere it is feed material for Oak Ridge or Hanford, materials such as beryllium and other things which are needed a l l over the Project. under the New York office for administration, ia, QB p u perhaps her, a regional laboratory i n the sense Likewise, they procure other special The Brookhaven Laboratory also omes that nine Eastern universities have collaborated t o form a non-profit institution which is the contractor, entirely financed by the Cds sion and the site is the Camp Upton s i t e on Long Island which was formerly used by the Army. This laboratory we look upon as being a non-programmatic laboratory where the work will be essentially f'undamental work and trang,

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with …